Last week I related a litany of narrow escapes I have had in my life and hinted that the ultimate saga I would tell you later. And I will in a minute but first I want to explain how being half an inch taller might have saved my life when I was 7.

We lived a mile from the Columbia Slough in Portland, a sluggish branch of the big river, and we kids loved fishing for crappies, bluegills, catfish and chub from its slippery muddy bank or from a huge log boom of cedar trees waiting to become shingles.

One rainy day I ventured into an abandoned houseboat lying askew on the bank with stern uphill in the mud and prow in less than three feet of murky water.

I clambered aboard and found a glassless window. Perfect to poke my willow stick through with store string tied on a borrowed hook. Out of the rain and all to myself with my 9-year-old brother on the log boom, I dropped a worm near the outfall pipe of the slaughterhouse offal disposal.

Bingo. I got one on and in near panic, began backing up to pull my prize aboard.

Kersplash!!!!!!! I had not noticed a 3-foot square hole in the floor full of water.

I was instantly up to my nose but by standing on my toes could breathe and holler like mad.

It seemed like forever but my brother heard me and, running over the logs like a lumberjack, got to me in time to grab my arm and pull me out. Freezing cold and soaking wet, I was only worried about my fish. He was still on the hook and it was a huge 8-inch chub. It was worth the dunking.

Closest to cashing in was in Wenatchee during a newspaper convention.

I often played golf with a fellow publisher who used to tantalize me by honking a horn or whacking a ball washer while I was putting. This time when he called I refused him until he pledged he would behave, so I relented.

He hadn't meant it. All through the match he kept firing a cap gun but always hid it behind his back.

I still beat him but then he said, "Tonight is western night at the banquet and I am coming as Black Bart. Why don't we put on a skit and let me shoot you and give the crowd a laugh?"

I had planned to wear high-heeled cowboy boots and so I agreed to fall down and fake it.

Elsbeth planned to come as a call girl and wear some short shorts and high white boots.

So we were standing near the bar and suddenly into the dance hall he burst, dressed all in black and silver. Spurs jangling, he strode over in front of 200 guests shouting, "Robinson. You're a dead man." Then, about eight feet from us, he pulled out what I had heard as a cap gun but was actually a Saturday night special pistol.

"BLAM." I dropped like a hot potato in agony, unable to breathe.

Elsbeth leaned over me and urged me to get up. "Good show." she said. I managed to gasp out that I could not get up, that I was hurt. "

I managed to get my hand to my chest and discovered it was bright red and guessed he had loaded a blank with ketchup like the movies.

Finally, the crowd realized that something had gone wrong and called an ambulance. I don't remember but they took me the hospital where the doctor examined me, took x-rays and found no bullet holes. He announced to the press that I had been hit by wadding from a blank cartridge.

They me gave a shot to halt the pain and get my breathing back.

I woke up half dead the next morning and son Mike came over to drive us back to Seattle.

Monday morning I felt punk and Elsbeth noticed a strange lump on my back. She raced me to emergency at Highline Hospital where the x-ray showed a bullet lodged near my backbone.

Next day we found that my fellow golfer had borrowed a pistol from a guy at his home club who used it to start track races. It was loaded with live ammo but my friend thought they were blanks.

He only fired it once though he had been shooting it a lot at the course, holding it behind him. Outdoors a .22 does sound like a cap gun.

The bullet had hit me in the chest, missed my aorta by a quarter inch, gone through the lungs and lodged beside the backbone. A miracle, of sorts.

When he took the gun back to the friend at his home course, the friend died of a heart attack.